THE HUNT FOR A SNIPER: OVERVIEW

THE HUNT FOR A SNIPER: OVERVIEW; BUS DRIVER KILLED; CHILDREN NOT SAFE, SNIPER'S NOTE SAYS

By FRANCIS X. CLINES with CHRISTOPHER DREW

Published: October 23, 2002

SILVER SPRING, Md., Oct. 22—
A bus driver quietly pausing before his morning rounds was shot to death near here today, leaving alarmed residents and the police fearing that the man was the 10th fatality attributable to the roving suburban sniper.

The police also said the attacker warned three days ago, ''Your children are not safe anywhere at any time.''

Police Chief Charles A. Moose of Montgomery County said the latest shooting was ''certainly very similar'' to the earlier ones, although the authorities were awaiting ballistics confirmation that the gunman had returned to prey again in the northern suburbs of Washington, where he killed his first six victims in two days earlier this month.

By the end of another fearful day of attack and pursuit, the police were broadcasting a plea to the sniper not to kill again.

''You indicated that this is about more than violence,'' Chief Moose said this evening, reaching out on television to address the sniper. ''We are waiting to hear from you.''

The chief offered the sniper telephone, mailbox or other ways to communicate. ''It is important that we do this without anyone else getting hurt,'' Chief Moose said.

In his statement, the chief referred to apparent efforts by the sniper to contact the police: ''In the past several days you have attempted to communicate with us. We have researched the option you stated and found it is not possible electronically to comply in the manner you requested.''

Earlier, Chief Moose confirmed that a letter found at the scene of the shooting on Saturday night in Ashland, Va., concluded with the warning about children.

The chief said he felt compelled to release that sentence because of public concern about ''incorrect reports'' in the news that the note contained a specific threat to focus on schoolchildren.

He declined to disclose more contents of the note while emphasizing that the sniper had already shot a variety of individuals, including a 13-year-old, who is in critical condition.

The predawn shooting in the Aspen Hill area near Silver Spring heightened the alarm in the metropolitan region as the police tried to stem widening fears that schoolchildren would be the next focus of attacks.

Through the day, Chief Moose, the leader of the manhunt, pressed his effort to reach the sniper in any manner the gunman preferred.

A police official said of the message to the sniper, ''We're just trying to slow him down as a way to stop another killing.''

The effort offered small comfort to residents openly fearful that the sniper was back stalking their area and was hardly done.

If, as expected, ballistics tests confirm that the driver was the latest victim, the sniper will have a three-week toll of 10 killed, 3 wounded and 1 miss across a target zone of hundreds of square miles and more than four million people.

''We have not been able to assure anyone of their safety,'' Chief Moose conceded as he faced the prospect that the sniper had doubled back 95 miles from the shooting on Saturday.

The victim, shot once as he idled on the steps of his bus with the door open and the lights on, was Conrad E. Johnson, 35, a county employee and the father of two children.

The gunman had a narrower field of fire than in previous killings because of the narrow bus door, law-enforcement officials noted. They estimated that the gunman was fully facing Mr. Johnson from an adjacent park. In the park, a basketball court stretches to a woodland edge 100 yards away that is an easy stroll from nearby streets.

At the first alarms after 6 a.m., the police responded with another rapid dragnet on surrounding roads. But the gunman once more escaped, leaving no witnesses' descriptions of him or an escape vehicle.

In the face of repeated questions about the next target, Chief Moose firmly denied leaving children at risk in not releasing the letter's postscript sooner. He grimly noted that the sniper, in shooting people of ages 13 to 72, appeared to be an equal-opportunity killer.

''We realize,'' he said, ''that the person or the people involved in this have shown a clear willingness and ability to kill people of all ages, all races, all genders, all professions, at different times, different days and different locations.''

Chief Moose took great care in reciting the spectrum of victims and the sniper's proven potency and repeated it twice more during day. That stirred speculation that he might be trying to send a covert signal to the sniper, acknowledging his power as a means of encouraging further communication.

In a message attributed two weeks ago to the sniper, a tarot death card, the writer claimed omnipotence, declaring, ''Dear Policeman, I am God.''

As the police continued to guard the full contents of the Ashland letter, detectives confirmed that the letter demanded up to $10 million in ransom. They emphasized, though, that the demand was ''very secondary'' in the rambling context of the three-page letter, which was sealed in an envelope.

Detectives and profilers of suspects have puzzled over how a gunman so clearly addicted to killing would issue a demand for money as part of his motive three weeks into his meticulous rampage. ''We think he just threw it in there at the end,'' a law-enforcement official said.